{"id":301417,"date":"2026-05-20T14:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/301417\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T14:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:30:12","slug":"rain-delays-corpus-christis-projected-water-crisis-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/301417\/","title":{"rendered":"Rain delays Corpus Christi’s projected water crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

A projection for when Corpus Christi expects to reach a water crisis was pushed back by three months after a wet April brought enough rain to delay an emergency but too little to quench a brutal drought.<\/p>\n

The city was initially bracing for a Level 1 emergency \u2014 the point when water demand is projected to be six months from exceeding supplies \u2014 to hit by September.<\/p>\n

Rain that the community has long prayed for fell last month, delaying the Level 1 projection to December and buying the city a few more months to plan for the expected emergency.<\/p>\n

Still, the delay provided \u201csome very encouraging news,\u201d Nick Winkelmann, chief operating officer of Corpus Christ\u2019s water department, told the City Council on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Winkelmann added that \u201cthere is a beneficial forecast this week, so we need to remember that these numbers do not include any future rain.\u201d<\/p>\n

For months, the city has been scraping by with a patchwork of temporary solutions<\/a> \u2014 including more than a dozen recently drilled wells \u2014 to supply enough water for its 318,000 residents, businesses and a robust petrochemical corridor, plus another 200,000 residents served in a seven-county area.<\/p>\n

Industrial demand accounts for around 60% of Corpus Christi\u2019s water demand.<\/p>\n

City leaders have been discussing an emergency curtailment plan for months<\/a>, and the City Council is set to vote on a final plan at its June 2 meeting. The water department proposes requiring customers \u2014 ranging from residents to oil refineries \u2014 to cut water use by 25% during a Level 1 emergency.<\/p>\n

The water department set residents\u2019 monthly baseline use at 8,000 gallons per household, limiting them to 6,000 gallons if an emergency is triggered. Under a proposal before the council, every 1,000 gallons used after that would cost an additional $4. Beyond 8,000 gallons, every 1,000 gallons would cost another $8.<\/p>\n

Commercial customers, such as businesses and apartment complexes, would have their baselines decided case-by-case based largely on average monthly usage from 2021-23.<\/p>\n

Council Member Eric Cantu is concerned about viewing apartment dwellers as commercial customers. \u201cApartments are homes also,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Winkelmann said the water department will meet with the local apartment association this week to discuss possible solutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A projection for when Corpus Christi expects to reach a water crisis was pushed back by three months…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-301417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}